Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Minsky on Mind(s) Message-ID: <2117@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 2-Feb-87 17:52:29 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.2117 Posted: Mon Feb 2 17:52:29 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 2-Feb-87 21:37:14 EST References: <463@mind.UUCP> <464@mind.UUCP> <2099@dciem.UUCP> <471@mind.UUCP> Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 116 Keywords: processes, consciousness, epiphenomenalism Xref: dciem comp.ai:191 comp.cog-eng:49 Summary: >> = Martin Taylor (me) > = Steven Harnad > >> Of course [rooms and corporations] do not feel pain as we do, >> but they might feel pain, as we do. > >The solution is not in the punctuation, I'm afraid. Pain is just an >example standing in for whether the candidate experiences anything AT >ALL. It doesn't matter WHAT a candidate feels, but THAT it feels, for >it to be conscious. Understood. Nevertheless, the punctuation IS important, for although it is most unlikely they feel as we do, it is less unlikely that they feel. > >> [i] Occam's razor demands that we describe the world using the simplest >> possible hypotheses. >> [ii] It seems to me simpler to ascribe consciousness to an entity that >> resembles me in many ways than not to ascribe consciousness to that >> entity. >> [iii] I don't think one CAN use the TTT to assess whether another >> entity is conscious. >> [iv] Silicon-based entities have few overt points of resemblance, >> so their behaviour has to be convincingly like mine before I will >> grant them a consciousness like mine. > >{i} Why do you think animism is simpler than its alternative? Because of [ii]. >{ii} Everything resembles everything else in an infinite number of >ways; the problem is sorting out which of the similarities is relevant. Absolutely. Watanabe's Theorem of the Ugly Duckling applies. The distinctions (and similarities) we deem important are no more or less real than the infinity of ones that we ignore. Nevertheless, we DO see some things as more alike than other things, because we see some similarities (and some differences) as more important than others. In the matter of consciousness, I KNOW (no counterargument possible) that I am conscious, Ken Laws knows he is conscious, Steve Harnad knows he is conscious. I don't know this of Ken or Steve, but their output on a computer terminal is enough like mine for me to presume by that similarity that they are human. By Occam's razor, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I am forced to believe that most humans work the way I do. Therefore it is simpler to presume that Ken and Steve experience consciousness than that they work according to one set of natural laws, and I, alone of all the world, conform to another. >{iii} The Total Turing Test (a variant of my own devise, not to be >confused with the classical turing test -- see prior chapters in these >discussions) is the only relevant criterion that has so far been >proposed and defended. Similarities of appearance are obvious >nonstarters, including the "appearance" of the nervous system to >untutored inspection. Similarities of "function," on the other hand, >are moot, pending the empirical outcome of the investigation of what >functions will successfully generate what performances (the TTT). All the TTT does, unless I have it very wrong, is provide a large set of similarities which, taken together, force the conclusion that the tested entity is LIKE ME, in the sense of [i] and [ii]. >{iv} [iv] seems to be in contradiction with [iii]. Not at all. What I meant was that the biological mechanisms of natural life follow (by Occam's razor) the same rules in me as in dogs or fish, and that I therefore need less information about their function than I would for a silicon entity before I would treat one as conscious. One of the paradoxes of AI has been that as soon as a mechanism is described, the behaviour suddenly becomes "not intelligent." The same is true, with more force, for consciousness. In my theory about another entity that looks and behaves like me, Occam's razor says I should presume consciousness as a component of their functioning. If I have been told the principles by which an entity functions, and those principles are adequate to describe the behaviour I observe, Occam's razor (in its original form "Entities should not needlessly be multiplied") says that I should NOT introduce the additional concept of consciousness. For the time being, all silicon entities function by principles that are well enough understood that the extra concept of consciousness is not required. Maybe this will change. > >> The problem splits in two ways: (1) Define consciousness so that it does >> not involve a reference to me, or (2) Find a way of describing behaviour >> that is simpler than ascribing consciousness to me alone. Only if you >> can fulfil one of these conditions can there be a sensible argument >> about the consciousness of some entity other than ME. > >It never ceases to amaze me how many people think this problem is one >that is to be solved by "definition." To redefine consciousness as >something non-subjective is not to solve the problem but to beg the >question. > I don't see how you can determine whether something is conscious without defining what consciousness is. Usually it is done by self-reference. "I experience, therefore I am conscious." Does he/she/it experience? But never is it prescribed what experience means. Hence I do maintain that the first problem is that of definition. But I never suggested that the problem is solved by definition. Definition merely makes the subject less slippery, so that someone who claims an answer can't be refuted by another who says "that wasn't what I meant at all." The second part of my split attempts to avoid the conclusion from similarity that beings like me function like me. If a simpler description of the world can be found, then I no longer should ascribe consciousness to others, whether human or not. Now, I believe that better descriptions CAN be found for beings as different from me as fish or bacteria or computers. I do not therefore deny or affirm that they have experiences. (In fact, despite Harnad, I rather like Ken Law's (?) proposition that there is a graded quality of experience, rather than an all-or-none choice). What I do argue is that I have better grounds for not treating these entities as conscious than I do for more human-like entities. Harnad says that we are not looking for a mathematical proof, which is true. But most of his postings demand that we show the NEED for assuming consciousness in an entity, which is empirically the same thing as proving them to be conscious. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt